cry out dear leaf..
It’s lost inside me somewhere,
But once I had a glimpse.
This blissful moment, when the world was light;
The trees shone with the freshest dew,
Its leaves singing to the rays of the sun;
Drops of life on a subtle leaf.
Water come and water run.
Wash this stale soul, breath into it a life.
We have had enough life without that touch,
Implacable yearnings drive our lives,
We seek for such that we will never find
With means as crude as these.
I went to the leaf and turned it broad,
The water rolls down its chosen path,
Cascading towards the calling ground,
That beckons it with an earthly hum.
It’s in my head, this divine hum,
A sound as foreign as the day I was born.
Oh to remember it vividly
Feeling the loss of a peace unsought,
Overwhelmed by the gift that has just been given.
Cry out dear leaf, for the sun is here;
As it always has been,
And, for you, always will.
PrioriThought 2008
Friday, January 30, 2009
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Spring Waters
Every spring the river floods,
And carries towards the dikes
Waters unwanted.
Before we built these walls
Were there such things as floods,
Or do the walls give the waters
Their name.
What was once cause and effect,
A natural cycle,
Becomes a force of nature,
A wash of destruction
And ruin, a devastator of
Lives, lives which knew
So much as to build the
Dikes, yet be upset at needing them.
Before we coined the word,
Did floods exist?
Does our expectation of them,
Our preparation for them
Make them more real than they
Ever used to be?
My feet are as wet as yours,
And will likely have to walk in
The muds of summer before
Time is taken to reflect –
Though by then we will likely
Have forgotten – again –
And be busy building
For next spring.
PrioriThought 2009
Every spring the river floods,
And carries towards the dikes
Waters unwanted.
Before we built these walls
Were there such things as floods,
Or do the walls give the waters
Their name.
What was once cause and effect,
A natural cycle,
Becomes a force of nature,
A wash of destruction
And ruin, a devastator of
Lives, lives which knew
So much as to build the
Dikes, yet be upset at needing them.
Before we coined the word,
Did floods exist?
Does our expectation of them,
Our preparation for them
Make them more real than they
Ever used to be?
My feet are as wet as yours,
And will likely have to walk in
The muds of summer before
Time is taken to reflect –
Though by then we will likely
Have forgotten – again –
And be busy building
For next spring.
PrioriThought 2009
Lamentable
The un-lamentable;
That which I gave up the right to grieve -
Gives much thought for measure.
The taste is sweet,
Like the last drop of a seasons honey,
From a bee that could do naught but make.
The look is cold,
Like the icy crystals that smile down my window
Before the thaw of spring.
The sound is acute,
Like the morning song of a bird
Breaking the silent air of decision.
The smell is violet,
Like the petal felled to the earth,
By the breeze that carries me the scent.
The look is elsewhere,
So I can’t see if these same senses
Have visited you as well.
PrioriThought 2009
The un-lamentable;
That which I gave up the right to grieve -
Gives much thought for measure.
The taste is sweet,
Like the last drop of a seasons honey,
From a bee that could do naught but make.
The look is cold,
Like the icy crystals that smile down my window
Before the thaw of spring.
The sound is acute,
Like the morning song of a bird
Breaking the silent air of decision.
The smell is violet,
Like the petal felled to the earth,
By the breeze that carries me the scent.
The look is elsewhere,
So I can’t see if these same senses
Have visited you as well.
PrioriThought 2009
Hermitage
Hermitage
It’s a far way off from anything practical,
And the paths have grown around the trail,
Not because I let them through a hermits nature,
But because I was so busy moving down this road,
That the idea of tending the trail seemed
Superfluous.
In the end I am glad, for the home I have started
Building, is far away, removed, and different.
I use the same materials as them, and for these
Teachings I am obliged to give thanks to
The strained shoulders of the giants
Upon which I stand.
Am I lazy to wish to break from this work of
Building, constantly building, and just sit here
To enjoy the spectacle of my own labour?
Some times it feels as if I should be moving,
Maybe I didn’t go far enough, maybe this was not
The place to build at all.
Though the work has begun, and forgive me, myself,
For sitting and watching the masonry settle,
For letting the saws cool down, for letting the
Machine be oiled.
It sounds fair, but I question the oil, and the intent
That it coats on these cogs – the reasons behind
Nonchalance, and the excuses for sitting.
All work and no play will drive this soul into
A depression, a great hollow, a deepening hole,
Filled with past acts that justify its own existence.
Would it have been better to have cleared the path before
Setting to the stone, to allow for more says, to
Invite those careful eyes that have already made
So much more progress than that which I now
Sit here, observing, contemplating, mentally jumping
To see in a clearer light.
PrioriThought 2009
It’s a far way off from anything practical,
And the paths have grown around the trail,
Not because I let them through a hermits nature,
But because I was so busy moving down this road,
That the idea of tending the trail seemed
Superfluous.
In the end I am glad, for the home I have started
Building, is far away, removed, and different.
I use the same materials as them, and for these
Teachings I am obliged to give thanks to
The strained shoulders of the giants
Upon which I stand.
Am I lazy to wish to break from this work of
Building, constantly building, and just sit here
To enjoy the spectacle of my own labour?
Some times it feels as if I should be moving,
Maybe I didn’t go far enough, maybe this was not
The place to build at all.
Though the work has begun, and forgive me, myself,
For sitting and watching the masonry settle,
For letting the saws cool down, for letting the
Machine be oiled.
It sounds fair, but I question the oil, and the intent
That it coats on these cogs – the reasons behind
Nonchalance, and the excuses for sitting.
All work and no play will drive this soul into
A depression, a great hollow, a deepening hole,
Filled with past acts that justify its own existence.
Would it have been better to have cleared the path before
Setting to the stone, to allow for more says, to
Invite those careful eyes that have already made
So much more progress than that which I now
Sit here, observing, contemplating, mentally jumping
To see in a clearer light.
PrioriThought 2009
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Tell Me
Tell Me
Everywhere holds that potential that we seek,
So forgive yourself of such trepidations
That shake your mind. When they come,
You will find forgiveness hard, but once done,
You can smile in the face of your own undoing.
Why try to change what happens?
When it is done, sit and watch it as a success,
Regardless of the means to your ends,
You are meeting them. If you don’t see it yet,
Just watch the deeper parts of your mind.
It makes me smile to look at the things I say are hard,
When anything can be the same; it’s my view
That changes, even more than my actions,
And while I lament the lulls of my pride,
Pride doesn’t breed anything.
If I am in that calmer place that we spoke of,
Then I will stop the search for what I do not yet
Understand. Listen to the voice; the only thing that
Forgives myself, even when I can’t do it myself:
Such laughs are futile. Laugh.
At the end of this journey, I will look back
And smile, at the things that gave me such grief.
Humility has practiced this since our dawn.
Before we understood our own actions,
The road may have been softer,
But it did not tell us so much.
** written while travelling in Laos, 2008 **
PrioriThought 2009
Everywhere holds that potential that we seek,
So forgive yourself of such trepidations
That shake your mind. When they come,
You will find forgiveness hard, but once done,
You can smile in the face of your own undoing.
Why try to change what happens?
When it is done, sit and watch it as a success,
Regardless of the means to your ends,
You are meeting them. If you don’t see it yet,
Just watch the deeper parts of your mind.
It makes me smile to look at the things I say are hard,
When anything can be the same; it’s my view
That changes, even more than my actions,
And while I lament the lulls of my pride,
Pride doesn’t breed anything.
If I am in that calmer place that we spoke of,
Then I will stop the search for what I do not yet
Understand. Listen to the voice; the only thing that
Forgives myself, even when I can’t do it myself:
Such laughs are futile. Laugh.
At the end of this journey, I will look back
And smile, at the things that gave me such grief.
Humility has practiced this since our dawn.
Before we understood our own actions,
The road may have been softer,
But it did not tell us so much.
** written while travelling in Laos, 2008 **
PrioriThought 2009
Deception
If one thing is constant in this changing world,
It is that no matter where you go, nothing changes.
Where you make changes to find peace, you will find
Peace from the first resolve, yet confront another equal challenge.
Where you look for a more favourable opportunity, you
Will find one, and be surprised by the unforeseen challenges.
This is the nature of our joy. It is our suffering.
There is no way to distinguish between the two with words.
When I say it brings me joy, you smile, and laugh warmly.
When I say it brings me suffering, you console, and offer yourself.
When I tell you both were the same act, you turn away,
Calling me on my confusion.
This is the nature of our joy. It is our suffering.
When these simple pieces of life fall into place in your mind,
They can fit into either thought. Our own deception
Creates whatever we desire something to be. It’s one-sided.
Just half. An act is never completely one thing,
Yet still I don’t know what to call myself.
Is this joy, or is this suffering?
PrioriThought 2009
Going
I am always the one who seems to be going,
Yet ask me where, as you often do,
And I see my eyes glaze over,
As they reflect in yours.
But still you seem to always be there,
At that place that I was going to;
How you know before me
Where, is why you are here.
I am always the one who seems to be going,
And it’s not that I am trying to get away
From you, or anything, I just don’t know
What is here, so I go there...
PrioriThought 2009
Narcissuses Puddle
I felt her tears fall from the other side of the earth
And even through such spaces
The ripples created in my own puddle,
From this seemingly simple act,
Shook me from the trance
my own reflection was holding over me.
Awkwardly stumbling
in this newly awakened state,
not seeing beyond the air in front of me
the recesses of my mind,
the pieces that still saw reality,
worried that this wakened creature
would so thoroughly splash the puddle,
that even now, being able to drink,
it would find the drops so finely spread.
So randomly thrown and lain about,
that thirst could not drive him
to find any amount of water
that could still quench.
And even through such spaces
The ripples created in my own puddle,
From this seemingly simple act,
Shook me from the trance
my own reflection was holding over me.
Awkwardly stumbling
in this newly awakened state,
not seeing beyond the air in front of me
the recesses of my mind,
the pieces that still saw reality,
worried that this wakened creature
would so thoroughly splash the puddle,
that even now, being able to drink,
it would find the drops so finely spread.
So randomly thrown and lain about,
that thirst could not drive him
to find any amount of water
that could still quench.
*
PrioriThought 2009
The House of My Creation
The house of my creation
Seeks the walls built
In absence of my permission.
The clothes that swathe this tepid body
Seek the weavings
Of fabrics that covers more.
The steps of this somnolent mind
Seek the paths
Laid down with self discovery.
~
The dream is of a man more weathered than I.
So much is foreign, so much is home,
Like the working of an estranged youth
Who wishes to know the light in the deepest caverns,
Yet battles the darkened calls of the night.
Where does one learn to light these depths
While conquering the fears of shadows…
Faced on all sides with masks smiling at themselves -
For they can only smile at their own understandings -
You, the child, will run down the only path left,
And there find that the rages of the past,
The emotions hiding in places still to be found,
Are not so real as to cause the fear and the faltering,
Revealed by those subtle smiles on the masquerading faces.
Giving guidance to the pieces, the construct becomes
A familiar place, and the walls that once loomed
Resemble landscapes now not so foreign
As the laughing masses, that once plagued thoughts.
Shape of life becomes a thing not interceded
But devised, intended, premeditated,
And with this permission, is our house concept built.
The house of my creation
Seeks the walls built
In absence of my permission.
Naked against a cold that spreads from all sides,
Cloth is spun from the knowledge remembered,
Past from ancestors, written on your dwellings walls,
waiting for the one with the courage to discover
that the weavings of our own decision will cover
more than the scraps of thread that hold together
the semblance of these masked smiling men.
The clothes that swathe this tepid body
Seek the weavings
Of fabrics that covers more.
Dark is pierced by a light that draws us from slumber
And confirms that potential for shadow in our room;
Lighting the cries of their eyes, which melt down the paleness
Of their contrived disguise, the light shows many masks
And forces the association, for no longer can we place
Such things outside of ourselves, when they are so obviously
Just that – ourselves, looming in from all sides.
The steps of this somnolent mind
Seek the paths
Laid down with self discovery.
Your home is the place you build it to be, and whether
You let the walls be covered in shadows, or read as scripture,
Is your fabric determined and spun; this weaving will replicate
The workings of your mind, and where awareness goes, energy flows,
Attracting the masks you bear to yourself, ready for identification,
Seeks the walls built
In absence of my permission.
The clothes that swathe this tepid body
Seek the weavings
Of fabrics that covers more.
The steps of this somnolent mind
Seek the paths
Laid down with self discovery.
~
The dream is of a man more weathered than I.
So much is foreign, so much is home,
Like the working of an estranged youth
Who wishes to know the light in the deepest caverns,
Yet battles the darkened calls of the night.
Where does one learn to light these depths
While conquering the fears of shadows…
Faced on all sides with masks smiling at themselves -
For they can only smile at their own understandings -
You, the child, will run down the only path left,
And there find that the rages of the past,
The emotions hiding in places still to be found,
Are not so real as to cause the fear and the faltering,
Revealed by those subtle smiles on the masquerading faces.
Giving guidance to the pieces, the construct becomes
A familiar place, and the walls that once loomed
Resemble landscapes now not so foreign
As the laughing masses, that once plagued thoughts.
Shape of life becomes a thing not interceded
But devised, intended, premeditated,
And with this permission, is our house concept built.
The house of my creation
Seeks the walls built
In absence of my permission.
Naked against a cold that spreads from all sides,
Cloth is spun from the knowledge remembered,
Past from ancestors, written on your dwellings walls,
waiting for the one with the courage to discover
that the weavings of our own decision will cover
more than the scraps of thread that hold together
the semblance of these masked smiling men.
The clothes that swathe this tepid body
Seek the weavings
Of fabrics that covers more.
Dark is pierced by a light that draws us from slumber
And confirms that potential for shadow in our room;
Lighting the cries of their eyes, which melt down the paleness
Of their contrived disguise, the light shows many masks
And forces the association, for no longer can we place
Such things outside of ourselves, when they are so obviously
Just that – ourselves, looming in from all sides.
The steps of this somnolent mind
Seek the paths
Laid down with self discovery.
Your home is the place you build it to be, and whether
You let the walls be covered in shadows, or read as scripture,
Is your fabric determined and spun; this weaving will replicate
The workings of your mind, and where awareness goes, energy flows,
Attracting the masks you bear to yourself, ready for identification,
or unconstructive dissemination, depending on the shade of light cast,
And the way you let your shadows fall, on this path of self discovery.
And the way you let your shadows fall, on this path of self discovery.
PrioriThought 2009
Snowy Mountain
***
The last of the shadows slid down the mountain,
And though there were still those pieces of dying
Light in the air, my own shadow was cast only on ether.
The boughs around me said their goodnights,
and tucked away under the blankets of snow.
My shadow in the air felt the cut of the flakes cold.
Now alone, just me and the chill, I sat down
And wondered whether it best to continue up,
Knowing to be confronted by a dark that I feared,
Or to turn back down, and let the peaceful slopes
Sleep, as they always do.
Alone on that patch, unnoticed by nature,
I warmed myself with thoughts of home, and of times
In the valley, where I grew up, and where I yearned to sleep.
So entangled was my mind in these thoughts, that I didn’t
Notice the sun laughing in the east. Laughing at me,
Because the snow had helped me to become, to realize,
That I was just part of that peaceful slope.
PrioriThought 2009
The last of the shadows slid down the mountain,
And though there were still those pieces of dying
Light in the air, my own shadow was cast only on ether.
The boughs around me said their goodnights,
and tucked away under the blankets of snow.
My shadow in the air felt the cut of the flakes cold.
Now alone, just me and the chill, I sat down
And wondered whether it best to continue up,
Knowing to be confronted by a dark that I feared,
Or to turn back down, and let the peaceful slopes
Sleep, as they always do.
Alone on that patch, unnoticed by nature,
I warmed myself with thoughts of home, and of times
In the valley, where I grew up, and where I yearned to sleep.
So entangled was my mind in these thoughts, that I didn’t
Notice the sun laughing in the east. Laughing at me,
Because the snow had helped me to become, to realize,
That I was just part of that peaceful slope.
PrioriThought 2009
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